


You Forgot Your Change!

by rhysiana



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Art School Lardo, F/M, Law School Shitty, meet cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-19 23:46:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11908740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhysiana/pseuds/rhysiana
Summary: A Shitty/Lardo meet-cute for a prompt I saw on Tumblr: "You look like you can barely afford to eat out, and you still gave me the best tip I have ever received from a single person."





	You Forgot Your Change!

In theory, taking a job waiting tables at the posh restaurant near the yacht club was genius. Where better to make big tips than a place frequented by people who clearly had too much money?

Turns out, rich people didn’t tip that well. Lardo had no idea why, but it appeared to be the truth. She still needed the job, though, so she stuck with it. Art supplies weren’t cheap, and she had a show coming up.

Not that today is going to be much help for her art supply fund. She maybe shouldn’t have made the mistake of inadvertently insulting hyperrealism earlier, because now Beth Ann, who was hostess this afternoon, was assigning all the stingiest people she could find to Lardo’s section. It wasn't even like Lardo had said it was bad! She just said it was technically impressive, but often compositionally uninteresting. It wasn’t like she’d memorized the portfolios of all her fellow servers.

Looking at the guy Beth Ann had just seated, she thought maybe she should consider it, just out of self-preservation. Because this guy didn’t look like he fit in with this restaurant’s usual clientele at all. He didn’t fit in with this entire side of _town_ at all. He was wearing an American flag denim vest over a slogan tee, for god’s sake. He looked vaguely like a refugee from the set of _Dazed and Confused_ ; he looked like a dine-and-dash waiting to happen.

Still, she was a professional. Sort of. Whatever. She had standards, anyway. So she stepped up to the table in complete customer service mode and asked what she could get him.

“I dunno, man, you think I could start with a little light socialism?”

She blinked at him. She was generally prepared to deal with customers who went off script, but this was pushing it, even for her. “I’ll see what I can do about that. How about a drink while you wait for the revolution?”

He ran a hand back through hair in desperate need of a cut and then grinned up at her from under a rather impressive mustache. “I like you. I guess I’ll have some tea?”

She breathed an internal sigh of relief that he was at least willing to be guided back to normality and smiled before she went off to get his drink.

The rest of the meal proceeded in the same manner: outlandish answers to normal questions and evident pleasure at her willingness to humor him, interspersed with his occasional questions for her (apparently he noticed the paint on her wrist; she was just grateful she hadn’t missed any in her hair), though nothing too invasive or that took up too much of her time. By the time she brought him the check, she was feeling vaguely bad for him. He’d spent the entire meal alone and frankly looked exhausted any time he wasn’t interacting with her.

She really, really hoped his credit card wasn’t going to get declined.

She lost a step as she headed back to his table and saw he’d already left. She really hadn’t thought he’d be such a dick… Not that she really knew him, but she usually thought she was a pretty good judge of character after an entire meal service. She looked around frantically, and was surprised to spot him standing just outside the door, calmly texting.

Curious, she took the last few steps to the table and picked up the check folder. Inside was a $100 bill. On a bill that barely cleared $30. She rushed to the register to get his change before he could disappear.

“Sir! Sir, you forgot your change!” she said, running out the front door just as an obnoxiously large truck pulled up and the scruffy man moved toward it.

“No, I didn’t,” he said, smiling back over his shoulder as he pulled open the door. “You were the only good thing about today; believe me when I say you deserve that tip.”

The driver of the truck (shiny, leather seats, clearly not anyone’s actual work truck) looked at the scruffy guy in concern. “You all right, Shitty?”

“Yeah, Jack,” she heard as the door started to close. “Thanks for coming to pick me up.”

Lardo was still standing there, stunned under the awning with her 200% tip, as they pulled away.

***

“Lards, there’s this, like, hella rich-looking dude standing in front of your painting!” Carrie tugged urgently on her elbow.

“Really?”

“Yeah, and he’s got this weird friend all, like, talking up how it subverts the patriarchy and shit.”

“Well, I mean, he’s basically right…”

“Yeah, but I’ve never seen him before.”

They were getting near her part of the gallery, so Lardo settled on, “Huh,” as her response.

There were indeed two guys in suits standing in front of her largest painting, a large muscled torso with sequined drops of sweat and trails of glitter. The guy with the tiny stub of a ponytail was gesturing enthusiastically to the taller guy in the more tailored suit.

“Please, Jack, _please_ , get this painting and hang it in your living room to be the backdrop the next time ESPN does a video call. I beg you. Nay, I _implore_ you!”

The one who was Jack turned to look down at his friend and smiled slightly. “Yeah, okay. I like it.”

“Yes!” exclaimed the other guy, and held out his fist for a fist bump. Then he turned as well and she saw the mustache.

“Oh my god, it’s you! The Big Tipper!”

At which he actually blushed, a reaction she really hadn’t expected from a guy who seemed to like making bizarre statements at every opportunity. “Uh, hey.”

“Why don’t I just go find the gallery owner?” Jack murmured with a quick hand on his friend’s shoulder before he slipped away.

“What are you doing here?” Lardo asked.

“I, uh, got your name off the receipt and Googled to see if I could find any of your art.” His eyes widened at how that sounded. “But not, like, in a stalker way, I swear! You just seemed really interesting, and I wanted to see what kind of art you made, and when I saw the announcement for the show, I wanted to come, and my buddy Jack really needs art for his place, and…”

He trailed off as he caught the quirk Lardo couldn’t repress at the corner of her mouth. “So you’re looking, um, different. I don’t think I would have recognized you, except for your ’stache.”

He reached up and smoothed it automatically. “Yeah, it’s pretty noticeable, I guess. I came here straight from work.”

“What kind of work?” she asked, unable to restrain her curiosity about a guy who would overtip so outrageously while wearing a denim vest and Birkenstocks. It had been a memorable first impression.

“Clerking for a judge. I’m almost done with law school.”

That… was not the answer she had been expecting. “And Jack? That he needs a new backdrop for ESPN?”

“Hockey.”

She turned to try to get a look at Jack again and caught sight of those blue eyes under dark boy-band bangs. “Huh,” she said again. “Should have charged more.”

The guy threw back his head and laughed. “I think that’s the least impressed reaction I’ve ever seen him get.”

She looked up at him, face carefully blank, and he laughed again.

“I’m Shitty,” he said, offering a hand.

She raised an eyebrow and shook it.

“Well, I mean, obviously not, but it’s better than my real name.”

She nodded. “Lardo.”

He grinned, accepting that completely at face value, and his green eyes sparkled. “So, Lardo, can I ask you out to dinner?”

“You can. To any restaurant but the one I work at.”

“Sold!”

She spent the rest of the evening chatting with them, until the gallery kicked everyone out. Her first date with Shitty ended up being the very next night.

Jack’s apartment ended up with a lot more art.

**Author's Note:**

> (The intended implication in the earlier part is that Shitty had to meet with some of his "shitty" relatives at the yacht club, and intentionally dressed in a way he knew would get him denied admittance to the club restaurant.)
> 
> I am, in fact, on [Tumblr](https://rhysiana.tumblr.com).


End file.
